-
The New Jemo House
Hi all! This is Stephen Jeter, Jessica and Emma’s dad and TLC board member. This last summer I had the great privilege to be able to visit the new Jemo House site. Wow! What a wonderful place! A huge thank you to all the people who contributed to make this a reality.
Jemo House is located at the end of a shady path on 1 1/2 acres of land. In the picture below you are looking at the front of the house; Jessica and Lynet are enjoying the favorite hangout place, the semicircular front steps.
In case you don’t know, the floorpan is in the shape of a U. The girls’ wing is on the left, the boys’ on the right and across the front is the kitchen, dining room, family room and a dedicated study room. Oh yeah, the two front rooms on either side are for our awesome house moms. The house has beds for 24 children. We have room, but are also growing fast.
The two black tanks in the front are for water collection (2000 liters each). They are now hooked up to the gutters to collect rainwater. There is another 8000 liter tank in the back and one on an elevated stand to provide running water to the house taps. That sounds like a lot of water! During the rainy season all tanks can be overflowing nearly everyday, but this capacity should get us through the dry season in good supply.
From the front porch you can see the Jemo House property. There is a lot of space in the yard for the kids to play and they use all of it! Beyond the fence is the shamba, or field, for maize, mango, banana, avocado and other vegetables for the table. This is a great feature allowing Jemo House to be more sustainable. The potential tilapia pond hasn’t turned out to be a viable option. It will be filled in and more crops planted.
Does anyone know what this game is called? The kids really like it (along with jump rope). And there’s still room in the yard for a rowdy ball game!
That’s all for now. Thanks again to all who made these happy faces possible.
